Miscellaneous Monday

Hmmm...I think all I do now is Miscellaneous Mondays...oh well. Not a lot going on lately to blog about!

When I came home from work on Friday, my front door was wide open. Now me, the practical (super paranoid) person that I am, thought that of course, Husband had left it open, as he’s prone to do. Unfortunately for my nerves, he had left on a scout camping trip about 3 hours earlier. So I sat in my car for a few minutes, debating on if it was innocently left open, or a burglar (or worse!) was in my house. As I sat there, in the driveway, I wondered how crazy I must have looked to the neighbors. So finally, I chose to believe that it was an accident, and there was no one inside. So I cautiously enter the house, and sneak around (holding my water bottle like a weapon, which is good, because if anything is going to scare a prowler, it’s an empty plastic bottle) after I looked at every room, I determined the place to be free of invaders. Luckily. Of course, going to sleep that night was hard, as I was sure that someone had just waited in the house, hiding, for me to go to sleep. I really need to man up when I’m alone.

Yesterday at church, my nephew Zeke climbed onto my lap during sacrament meeting. (My brother and his wife have recently joined my ward) He’s about 4, so during the meeting, instead of listening to the speakers, he decided to just talk the whole time, regardless of my telling him we should be quiet and listen. He was pretty funny the whole time, but my favorite thing he said was “You can’t kill someone you know.” I thought that was nice. I don’t even remember how the subject came up (I think he may have hit Husband, who then played dead, and I told Zeke he had killed him. Zeke then told me that wasn’t possible) but good to know. He also explained to me how cutting hair works, and had never heard of gel, because when I said I had used gel in my hair that morning, he asked, “Like prison?” I just laughed, and probably a little too loudly, since we were in church and all.

My last stitches came out yesterday! I probably played with them a little too much, so oops, but come on! How do they not expect you to? It’s a new foreign object in your mouth, of course you will. The first one fell out yesterday as I was getting ready for church, and the second fell out while I was watching TV. Actually, I may have to rescind my earlier comment, I don’t know for sure if it was the last set. I think I can feel another one in there, but I don’t know if it’s a stitch, or just another thing in my mouth. I guess time will tell, but I don’t really play with this one all that much, so it might take a while.

Miscellaneous Monday

I am, as I specified yesterday, alone in my house right now. When I’m home alone, I get super paranoid. For example, yesterday I was making soup, and I was boiling the water. I put the water on the stove, and then did laundry. As I was putting some clothes to dry on the line, I heard a noise, but I assumed it was nothing. Then I heard a bigger noise, followed by kind of a clatter, and I thought a murderer was about to break in. I rushed out of the room I was in, and then saw it, the pot was sure a-boiling, and the lid was popping on and off, making the noise. So later, I was upstairs, scrapbooking, and I SWEAR that someone tried to get into the front door. I know that I’m jumpy, but I promise I heard the front door rattle and try to move. So of course, I freak out, and grab the nearest weapon I had – scissors. So I’m sitting upstairs, the scissors in my hand, and I’m like, hysterical – like, tears streaming down my face, being as quiet as I can hysterical. Of course that’s the moment that Husband decided to call, so I answer the phone, whispering, like in case someone can hear me in my house. After a few minutes of being on the phone, I calmed down enough to put down my weapon. After another half hour or so, I could finally go downstairs. I SWEAR someone tried to come in, I swear it.

Despite my surgery last week, I had my first race of the year on Saturday. Don’t worry, safety friends, I asked the doctor before anything happened if it would be ok if I raced. They told me that the swelling would be really bad Thu/Fri, but by Saturday, should be mostly normal, so it was just my comfort level, and it would be a good idea not to run at my full speed. No problem, said I, and planned to make the race. True to their word, my face was really swollen those 2 days, but then Saturday, woke up to a relatively normal face. Huzzah! So I got all dressed in my gear, and off the races for us. (PJ and I) PJ took this picture of me before the race.

My face looks a little weird, but that’s because it hurt to smile. I did what I could. The race was fun, we ran pretty slowly, and I finished with relatively no pain, yay! It was so cold though, the wind was against us for half of the race. Curse you wind! But now, every race from here on out can only be better, so I’m excited by that. You'll notice my shirt is customized for Team Vieve. Whoever wants to join my team, can. I can't guarantee shirts, but I love my Team Vieve shirt, it was made by my sister. The back part is:

Since I love cupcakes, of course the back of this is perfect. So, really, lets get everyone on #TeamVieve. All you have to do is, after you do something great, say "Team Vieve!" and you'll be part of the club!

What I had for dinner, or, how this post will bore you

Greetings! Mostly this post is about…nothing. I’ve had a few days off from well, everything, Trying to recover from the surgery and stay not bored has been pretty challenging. For example, as of today, I had finished my scrapbooking (yay! And only for now…), finished all my card boxes, and kept everything pretty clean. Then Husband went out of town yesterday for work, and so today has been spent alone, trying to kill time. Sadly, the activity that I was most looking forward today didn’t happen on account of sickness, but I made myself a to-do list, and I’ve kept to it pretty strongly. For funsies, here’s what was on my list:

Go to church. That’s right, I put that on my list. I like to put things that I know I’ll for sure to on my list, so that I at least will get one thing done.

Clean all 3 bathrooms – which I did splendidly. That’s toilets, mirrors, countertops, mopping of floors. It took a while, but they’re all sparkling now.

Watch the final 2 episodes of Downton Abbey season 2. I did this while completing another item on my list, “Write in my Journal”. I did them both quite well. I’m so obsessed with Downton right now. I wish I wasn’t done with it and that it would go on forever.

Do laundry. I had to do this, my hamper was full. I really love when the hampers are empty and the washing is finished. I’m like a 1950’s housewife in that regard.

Change lightbulb. On Friday evening, a lightbulb in the basement went out, so I changed it. What what!

Eat dinner. This was another guarantee. Since I’m mostly on soft foods still, I made myself some soup and toast. Yesterday, my mouth was feeling a little better, so I ate some salad and bread, a bunch of stuff, but I was paying for it later, when my mouth was killing me before I went to bed. So today, I’ve taken it easy again. I made a soup out of the Shirley J’s Whisk Bliss. I don’t know who’s heard of this here, but I’ve been to a couple Shirley J parties, and they have some delish foods. I tried once, a while ago, to make it, but it turned out weird and grainy. Today, I tried again, and it worked! Yum! So I took a picture, so you could enjoy it as well.

That’s raspberry jam on my toast, in case you’re wondering.

That was it, that’s my list! Now, I know it’s exciting, and I’ve had an exciting kind of day. But I’ve tried my best to keep busy today, having spent the day by myself. I’ve actually really enjoyed it, getting to do what I want to do, getting everything finished that I wanted to get done. I actually completed an entire to-do list, which hasn’t happened in a while! So I’ll enjoy the rest of my evening, getting to do what I want to do.

Foto Friday

With this mouth surgery of mine, I’m not going anywhere. I’m sequestered to my house, with not much to do. I mean, there’s TV to be seen (Downton Abbey season 2, I’m slowly making my way through that!) and books to be read, etc., but I get so bored after like, an hour or so of doing nothing. So I looked at this as the perfect opportunity to work on the craft items that I’ve been almost done with. I’ve started these projects, and then had to stop working on them (because of a missing piece, or just a creative block) but finally, I’m finished with them!

The first one here is something that I copied from someone else. When Chelle and I were getting pedicures a couple of weeks ago, the pedicure place had something similar in their place, and I kept looking at it the whole time we were there. I did my own version of it, but I put mine into a vase, rather than in a small glass cup like theirs was. I like this, I think it ended up pretty good. I’m not sure if I wanted to add more words to it, or take some away, but here it is for now:

The thing that made me sad is you can’t really see the cranberry stones/marbles in there, but I think it ended up ok anyway. I was trying to match the color of the words to the color of the marbles to the color of my wall. Hopefully it worked out.

And yes, here we have another box. This is, for now, my last card box that I’ll be making. Now I just need to figure out where to put all of these. I can’t decide if I should just put this where all my card stuff was already, down in the basement, away from everyone, or if I want it to be up where people can see it and admire my work. I’m not prideful, mind you, I just want people to enjoy my work as much as I do.

This box was a little different, because there’s no real theme for this one, it’s sort of a miscellaneous one. In this one, I have Halloween cards, baby cards, an Easter card, a Congrats card, and some sports cards. So I wanted to convey that on this card, that there are many cards, not just one kind. So I specified the kinds on the top of the box. After I finished this, I’m not really sure if I like it.

See? I kinda like it, because it explains things, but the colors didn’t end up matching the paper on the box as much as I thought they would, even after I tried to mix it up and fix it. So now its on there, but I don’t know how much I like it I feel like I might change it or something, or just start over on this box, from scratch. Oh well. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the crafts/cards/boxes I make, it’s that it doesn’t matter if anyone else likes it, because it’s my craft.

Graftin’

Last year, I finally, after many years, finished all my dental work. As everyone here knows, I have really bad teeth. I avoided the dentist for many a year, so finally, when I got the courage to get back there, I found that I had thousands of dollars of work to be done. So, I saved my monies, charged what I had to, and finally after a few years, finished the bulk of it. There was one more thing to be done, and that was some implants in my mouth. I was told originally that it was going to be two, so I was ok with this. Well, not ok, but you know what I mean. So finally, after everything was finished, my dentist sent me to an oral surgeon for a consultation. Finally, I worked my courage up to meet with him.

I found that not only did I need the implants, but I needed 3 of them, plus a bone graft to boot! So I found the cost (which, BTW, my insurance doesn’t cover. Because, you know, this is an elective surgery) and then made the appointment. After many a rescheduling, finally, yesterday was my appointment, at 1:00 PM. I, of course, was freaking right the heck out, because that’s what the dentist does to me, so I was trying so hard to keep my morning busy, so that I wouldn’t have to think about it. So I woke up at 10 to 7:00, because I wanted to get a piece of toast in my before my food cutoff. I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink for 6 hours prior. After breakfast, I watched TV, then did 2 loads of laundry, cleaned the kitchen, walked on the treadmill while watching a TV show, then showered and it was…10:12. WHAT?! My time wasn’t going fast enough! So I got ready…watched TV…put away some laundry…painted my fingernails…watched TV…and then it got to be 12:30, and Husband came home from work to take me in. I got there, and had to wait about 10 minutes before they took me back there. Finally I got taken back, where they attached me to a billion machines. One of them was my heartrate/pulse monitor, so I got to see that my resting heart rate is about 60 beats/minute. The girl also took some blood, about 4-syringes worth, to combine with the bone stuff they had to make my bone matter that they’d later put in my jaw. After many attempts, she finally got the needle in. She apologized, and told me that I would probably bruise. She was right:

Finally, after the blood was drawn, and the antibiotic was administered via IV, they then put in the stuff to make me sleep. It must have been just barely 2 minutes before I felt the effects of this, and went out. I sadly woke up before they were finished, so I got to watch that, which I really hate. But then I woke up, they unhooked me, and wheeled me out to Husband, and he and the nurse helped me into the car. On the way home, we got a Frosty for me, because they told me to hurry and get something in my belly and take a Loratab, so that when the numbness wears off, I’ll already have a pain medication happening. I got home, ate about 1/2 of the Frosty, took a pill, and started watching TV. Everyone told me that I’d probably just sleep for the rest of the day. Sadly, that didn’t happen. I was pretty wide awake, for about 20 minutes. Then I’d sleep for 10 minutes, then awake for like, 40, asleep for 10..this went on for like, 2 hours, and then I just woke up completely. So for the rest of yesterday afternoon, I just watched TV, and tried very hard to eat something, anything. The gauze in my mouth, soaking up the blood, was making it dang near impossible to eat anything. Finally, at like, 10:30, I was STARVING. So I took out the gauze, and ate some applesauce, which was delicious. Then I took more pain pills, and finally went to bed. I had to sleep upright, which was really weird. If anyone has had to do that, I’m sorry, because it’s the weirdest.

And there it is. I’m taking these next two days off, to recover. So far today, my face is swollen on the one side, which just makes me look like I have a fatty face. They did tell me that the swelling would be really bad days 2 and 3, and by day 4 (Saturday) I should be pretty near healed, and we’ll see how that happens. I’m glad that this all happened, that I finally got the nerve up to get the process started. And fingers crossed that I heal quickly, and without much pain.

Chocolate Lasagna

This month, (tonight, in fact!) I am the hostess for Stamp & Chat. This really just means I bring the treat, which is always fun. I found a recipe online the other day for Chocolate Lasagna – did anyone ever eat the Chocolate Lasagna at Olive Garden? Because I used to freaking love that, and then one day, they just took it off the menu, no explanation! WTH, Olive Garden? So the other day, I found a copycat recipe, and decided to make it.

Holy crap was this recipe hard. First of all, it requires you to cut the cake into three layers, which was really hard for me, plus the cake kept falling apart. It was just a mess to deal with. I have ideas of how I’d improve it to make it better, but this time was ridic. Here’s what the cake is supposed to look like, via the internets:
Now, I know mine isn’t cut up or anything, but this is what mine looks like:
I did try some last night, to make sure it was edible and whatnot, and it’s not too bad, it’s just not as good as Olive Gardens, of course. But I gave it my best, and I know how to fix it in the future, should I ever do it. Right now, though, I feel like I never want to bake again, with the disaster that this one almost proved. Hopefully, everyone will think it's a delish cake, even if it doesn't look that good.

Show and Tell

This is my show-and-tell entry. First up is my box for love cards. I’m not really into this box. I thought it would turn out differently, I think, so when I finished, it was just kinda…meh. So here it is, in all it’s weirdy glory. Secondly, I made my box for Christmas cards. I really liked how this one turned out, actually, so yay! I think I only have a box or two left to make before all of my cards have a home.

My brother in law joined the army last year, about the same time that he joined our family, actually. I’ll refer to him as Captain, I believe. He’s not going to into combat; he’s going to learn languages, specifically, Chinese and Arabic. He went to Japan on his mission, so they told him those 2 languages would be good to work off of Japanese (if that makes sense) So Captain put out a notice on Facebook saying that he needed to practice his Arabic, so if anyone wanted anything written in Arabic, to let him know. Well, of course, I want my name in Arabic, so I requested it, and he sent me my name on Friday, and here it is for all to see!

That's pretty cool, right?! It doesn't really look like words to me, but a lot of languages do that to me.

A Little Irish Luck

As I’ve mentioned before again and again, I am so into doing crafty things now. I have Stamp & Chat once a month which helps, and doing that has made me branch into doing other things, my scrapbooking, my card boxes, etc. I know you’ve all heard all this before, so I’ll not spend too much time recollecting. Recently, Chelle has invited me into the inner sanctum of crafty things. She and Mama G do crafty things to decorate a bit of their house for the holiday of the month. I, as of this weekend, have now joined them in the awesomeness of it. I have never done anything like this before. So I went with them to Crafty Wood Cutouts a few weeks ago, and we picked out what we wanted for March – wooden block letters that spell out LUCK with some shamrocks thrown in for good measure. Finally this last Saturday, we got together to decorate.

Since I am a total newbie, I felt really unprepared for everything, but they helped me along, step by step, until I completed it, and it looked good. We painted the letters, and the shamrocks, and on some of them, we modge-podged some green scrapbook paper on them. Here’s my work area once we were done painting:

I felt bad about creating such the mess, but they assured me that it came right off with cleaning solution, so that helped. The masterpieces we created took about 2 1/2 hours, and I really like the end result. Here are my letters and shamrocks, as I was going to set them up:

Cute, right? I suppose I should have taken some close-ups, to show what they look like, but sadly, this is what you’ll get. And then last night, I set up the letters up where they’re going, and tried to take a picture of it:

And ta-daaaa! There it is! I really like this. I can’t wait to do the next one – but I’m not spoiling it now, you’ll just have to tune in to see!

Personal Sized Baked Oatmeals

I found this recipe on Pinterest. I don’t know how many of you are on Pinterest, but it’s kind of addicting. I haven’t really pinned anything of my own, but I get on there often to steal recipes and decorating ideas from other people’s pins. So the other day I was on there, and someone had pinned this recipe, and I took it. I’m collecting way too many recipes lately, I can’t make them fast enough! But I saw this and decided to make it post haste – you can always use breakfasts more than you can use treats. This recipe was super easy – and sugar free! (Minus any toppings you put on) I hope you enjoy!

Personal Sized Baked Oatmeals

2 Eggs
2 Cups unsweetened applesauce
5 cups rolled oats
1 banana, mashed
2 ¾ cups milk
¼ cup flaxseed meal
6 packets Sweetleaf Stevia (or 1 ½ tsp stevia powder)
1 TB ground cinnamon
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
Optional toppings: Raisins, walnuts, brown sugar, chocolate chips, fruits

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix eggs, vanilla, applesauce, banana and Stevia together in a bowl. Add in oats, salt, baking powder, flax and cinnamon, and mix well with wet ingredients. Finally, pour in milk and combine. Spray muffin tin with cooking spray or use cupcake liners. (I recommend both – use the liners, and spray them with cooking spray) Pour mixture evenly into tin cups. If using toppings, add them onto the tops of muffins now. If using fresh or frozen fruit, drop it right into the batter. Bake 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool and enjoy or freeze them in gallon freezer bags.

Miscellaneous...Wednesday

Ok, everyone. I know it’s been quite a long time since I’ve been on here last. Truth is, there hasn’t been a lot going on, and really, things are kinda boring, so I held off as long as I could. But now there are a few things I could document on here, so let’s get to it.

As I mentioned before, I am now the Assistant Den Leader for the Webelos. I have by now had 1 activity, and 1 Pack meeting. For the activity, the boys all wrestled for like, an hour, then made collages as quickly as humanly possible so they could get back to fighting with each other. Since this is really my first experience hanging out with more than 2 or 3 boys (my nephews, who, compared to this, are really quite tame, who knew?) I was pretty taken aback by all this. And then last night, we had a Pack Meeting (The Blue & Gold Banquet, doesn't that sound fancy?), which apparently happens once a month, and everyone gets together to hand the monthly awards out to the boys, should they have gotten any pins/patches or whatever it is they get. Truthfully, I haven’t learned any of the lingo yet, but I expect to someday. I mean, come on, its still my first month!

Monday was Husband and I’s one year anniversary. That’s right, doubters- we made it to one year of being married! (I don’t know that there are many doubters out there, but if there are, I want to rub this in their face.) We kept it pretty low key, being a weeknight and everything, and went to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner. I cannot express how much I love this place. I’m glad it’s not closer to where I live, or else I would probably eat here once a week. For our gifts, we went in halfsies on a new TV – the one we have is…well, its not small, but for the room we have it in, it’s really hard to see, and it’s really far away from where you sit to watch it. So we got a new 55” TV – we had found one on sale, and decided that was the way to go. So we got it home on Monday, set it up, and holy cow! It’s just so…big! I’m definitely not used to it yet, but it’s really nice to be able to see words on the screen, and able to see the TV completely. I’m still trying to get used to the size of the TV, and I imagine that someday I will. I just can’t wait to watch a soccer game on it.

Speaking of soccer, the season starts this weekend! I am so excited for it. Sadly, we open with an away game, at LA, but I still have high hopes. The team has many new players, which is good, there are a few injuries right now as well. I'm going to hope for a win - I want a win so badly against LA, and to have a win at LA would be even better. I'm sure I'll update everyone here with the game results, so everyone - cross your fingers, toes, and everything else you can for a win for the RSL!